Once you go Muroexe, you can’t go back. You put them on and you’re like “did I put on shoes today?”. They are super light and fly as hell. They are classy and sassy at the same time. Why? Because they look like sneakers, but you can also match them with a more elegant outfit.
When we go shoe shopping (especially nowadays, that most of us are on a tight budget), what we want is investing on the perfect pair that ain’t going let us down two months post the purchase. We seek for a beautiful, comfortable pair that’s easy to wear. A pair of shoes that will follow us to our little run, to the office, to the restaurant, to the bar… Muroexe goes vegan on top of it all, which is plain great!
Well, we know that’s hard to believe that a pair of Muros can fulfill one’s shoe dreams. Do you have questions? Are you confused with the whole hybrid “sneaker-shoe” thing? We got the chance to have a chat with Hannah Weber, the communication manager of the brand, and we asked her about all these things. Read below!
How did Muroexe start?
Nowadays dress-codes aren’t the same any more. You can wear sneakers almost in every situation without drawing the attention to you and being out of place. We realized that all generations that grew up with sneakers – especially the ones that are now on their 20’s, found themselves in a moment where the circumstances required or forced them to renounce the fluorescent runners. At the same time, they weren’t willing to take the step into a business shoe. Muroexe is born out of the need to combine both ideas. We started to design and produce hybrid footwear. We make a shoe between a sneaker and a business shoe, piking the best part of each: the comfort and functionality from the first and the elegance and simplicity from the second. This way, our shoes are the perfect option for a meeting, an after work event or just a couple of beers with your friends.
On the other side, the factory we’re working with, helped us to get our ideas to the ground. We started from the scratch with a multi-disciplinary team composed of visual, industrial and product designers, as well as experts in biomechanics – all of them being out of the footwear industry. We needed people without any preconception of a shoe to make what we did: a totally new concept.
So you’re addressing mostly to the millennials. As a generation, it’s true that we broke the office look standards. We’re not too dressy, we’re not too casual – we’re something in between, like the Muroexe shoes. The shoes that you design are unisex but who are more likely to buy them – women or men?
Yes, exactly that’s the generation we try to dress: a generation, which searches for the perfect balance between something with style but at the same time comfortable. Regarding our public, we’re approximately around 70% men – 30% women, but we’re always working on expanding the product among the feminine sector.
Would you like to tell us about your values as a brand?
Our principal values turn around the design: maybe the functionality and the shoes being contemporary are the two, most important values when it comes to our products. We look at the functionality from the point of view of building a truly well-thought and well-designed shoe, with only necessary elements, eliminating everything superfluous and making it a really useful and practical object. The contemporary insists on the aesthetic values of the present. We develop a visual identity for this century and escape from all the “retro” tendency that’s currently all around us. Here’s where we include this elegant and very minimalist nuances of our lines in each product.
Simultaneously, in terms of the project, there are other values that matter to us. For example, our shoes are unisex – why just making shoes for men, when women consume as much as they do or even more?. Our shoes are vegan. At Muroexe, we love all the animals and we make sure that non of our products has any animal component, neither in the materials nor in the production.
There is a lot to discuss in here. Even on a philosophical level! You are a shoe company and what’s the most important thing for our spiece is to always stay grounded and down to earth. From your experience and from what you hear from your customers, do you think that you succeed to deliver your message about a better, more conscious lifestyle? Or is it just about the new shoes?
We, at Muroexe, consider that we’re not only a shoe brand, we’re more than that: we’re making history, based on our values, with which certain people can identify themselves and which we try to apply on all different levels of the brand, including the communication, the packaging and all the details of the products – even the contents we publish on our social networks.
Regarding the “lifestyle” aspect, at Muroexe we’re committed to everything related to the future: we’re interested in innovative and creative projects, everything that means a change on a small scale, which thousand of people are making day to day with their projects, businesses or with just their thoughts. We want to offer to our readers/customers the opportunity to be a part of this lifestyle, which is always looking forward, building, transforming and innovating in a responsible and conscientious way.
That’s beautiful and not-just-words. You always push yourselves further and further. With your new collection you designed shoes that can survive even the hardest storms. Would you like to talk to us about Supercell? Was it some kind of a bet to create the most resistant shoe?
There are four different types of thunderstorms and Supercell is one of them. They are overall the least common, but they have the potential to be the most severe ones. They usually produce big amounts of hail, torrential rainfall, strong winds and substantial down-bursts. We just loved the power behind this storm and got inspired by it. We want our shoes to have the same big impact, even though less destructive.
We wanted to make them as resistant as possible because the winter is coming. We wanted to make them last for a long time. The collection is composed of 7 models, five made out of a water resistant material and two made of a tracksuit fabric for nicer weather. To this materials, which are the key to the adaptability to different climatic environments of our products, come others like: a polyurethane sole, a high quality inner sole for intensive use day after day, a anatomic shape for a perfect fit and a breathable inner mesh which give the shoe a major comfort.
Where do you see yourselves in the near future? Is there anything that you can announce already?
Sky is the limit, isn’t it? We’re growing very fast, therefore we’re always thinking, developing, testing, researching and drawing new ideas. As far as I can tell, currently we’re developing a second silhouette. This one will see the light of the day at the end of the year and is going to be a little bit more shoe and less sneaker.
We also have plans to keep on developing our shoes in parameters of comfort – elegance, ideas for other possible products and big plans in terms of international expansion, with the opening of new markets, when it comes to distribution and communication.
Our magazine is called Nothing But Hope And Passion and it kind of works like a motto for us. What’s Muroexe’s motto?
Our brand’s motto is “Do the future”. It’s like a battle call, which is starting to accompany all of our creations and communications. By living by it, we try to immerse our customers and followers into the philosophy of building the future – one day at a time, each and every one of us.
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All photos courtesy of Muroexe. Get your snick-shoes from here.